by Richard Harris, MD, PharmD, MBA, PCCA International Seminar 2022 Speaker

Welcome to the PCCA version of Myth Busters. Today, we are discussing weight loss. Many people have tried, struggled, failed and succeeded in their weight loss journeys using various techniques. So, there is a ton of information floating around online, in the gym, throughout social circles and on social media. But what is actually “evidence-based” information versus what is just “bro-science”?

As healthcare practitioners, we are uniquely suited to help patients steward through the misinformation to acquire science-based techniques that aid them on their health journeys. One of my favorite, or least favorite, weight-loss myths is: “I have to burn off the cupcake I just ate by working out for an hour in the gym.”

This type of thinking is insidious, can severely impair our fat-loss goals and even create negative associations with food. This is personal — I watched my mother and sister battle eating disorders. Eating disorders are the mental health disorder with the highest mortality rate outside substance abuse disorders.¹ As healthcare practitioners, we should teach people that there is no such thing as good food or bad food. We use the 80/20 rule to explain how to eat. The oversimplification of this rule is: 80% single ingredient whole foods; 20% whatever else you like to eat and drink.

Whoops, we got sidetracked; back to burning off the cupcake at the gym. There are other reasons why this line of thinking is problematic. The first is that the trackers we use to measure caloric expenditures are inaccurate. They tend to overestimate caloric burn at low intensity and underestimate caloric expenditure at high intensity.^2,3

Another compounding factor is a compensation effect in basal metabolic rate for exercise energy expenditure. This means we burn more calories during exercise, but then burn less throughout the rest of the day. It’s estimated that this accounts for a 28% lower calorie expenditure from exercise for lean individuals and a 50% reduction for obese individuals.⁴

We address this by teaching people to look at calorie intake as a budget. You have a cupcake, great! Enjoy it, love it, don’t feel like you have to earn it, but account for it in your calorie budget and adjust.

Learn even more from Richard Harris at this year’s PCCA International Seminar 2022, where he will share more Myth Busters: Fat Loss Edition! Check out the full agenda and register today at www.PCCAInternationalSeminar.com .

References

1. Chesney E, Goodwin GM, Fazel S. (2014). Risks of all-cause and suicide mortality in mental disorders: a meta-review. World Psychiatry,13(2):153-160. doi:10.1002/wps.20128

2. Passler S, Bohrer J, Blöchinger L, Senner V. (2019 Aug 22). Validity of Wrist-Worn Activity Trackers for Estimating VO2max and Energy Expenditure. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 16(17):3037. doi:10.3390/ijerph16173037

3. Germini F, Noronha N, Borg Debono V, et al. (2022 Jan 21). Accuracy and Acceptability of Wrist-Wearable Activity-Tracking Devices: Systematic Review of the Literature. J Med Internet Res., 24(1):e30791. doi:10.2196/30791

4. Careau V, Halsey LG, Pontzer H, et al. (2021). Energy compensation and adiposity in humans. Curr Biol.;31(20):4659-4666.e2. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.016